2025 College Rankings

George Washington University is a federally chartered institution in the heart of Washington, D.C. that, given its location, has long been a feeder school for government-related jobs. As such, it is subject to many of the same pressures and dysfunctions that plague the rest of the nation’s capital.

The school’s administration has engaged in comparatively less direct activism than many of its peers, with some exceptions. GW, for example, is deeply involved with environmentalism and has made numerous environmental protection commitments—laudable in other contexts, perhaps, but a distraction from its educational mission. The school also employs a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy, albeit a small one. There are about 1.5 DEI employees for every 1,000 undergraduates, and a little more than 12 percent of faculty job listings require a DEI statement.

GW shows only a lackluster commitment to free speech. The school employs a bias-response system, designed to police the airing of opinions that some may consider offensive. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives the school a “yellow” speech code rating, meaning that its policies could easily be abused to suppress speech. That said, GW has endorsed the Chicago Principles, which promote the protection of free expression—perhaps a sign that it is attempting to do better.

There is not much ideological diversity among faculty members. Students, when asked to place their professors on an ideological continuum, where 1 is “very liberal” and 7 is “very conservative,” put their professors at 2.7, on average. In the 2023–24 election cycle, 97 percent of faculty campaign donations went to liberal or Democratic causes, while less than 3 percent went to conservative or Republican ones. An insignificant number of faculty members belong to organizations that promote free inquiry on campus.

Students at GW feel a persistent need to censor themselves. Some 63 percent tell FIRE that they silence themselves at least once a month. The school ranks in the bottom 20 on our student free speech index. GW students are, however, relatively tolerant of guest speakers. Though students say that they are much more tolerant of controversial left-wing campus speakers than of right-wing ones, GW has seen no de-platforming attempts over the last five years.

On curriculum, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school a C in its What Will They Learn? ratings, which assign letter grades based on how many of seven core subjects are required in the core curriculum or general education program. The school doesn’t require students to learn U.S. history or government to graduate.

GW can be a great investment economically. It takes about 1.9 years to pay back the cost of the education, slightly below our overall average of 2.3 years. Graduates tend to succeed in their professions. Median annual earnings ten years after initial enrollment overperform expectations by over $6,500, based on data from SAT scores and Pell Grant recipients. Still, the school fails to meet expectations for retention and six-year graduation rates, based on the same data. The retention rate is 90 percent, when it should be 93 percent, and the graduation rate is 85 percent, when it is predicted to be 87 percent.